Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Included an Epic Reference from A New Hope

Since it's the last installment of the Skywalker Saga, The Rise of Skywalker honors the iconic saga with numerous references from the original trilogy. And while Star Wars fans have noticed most of these Easter eggs, there's one that they could have missed which harked back from where it all started.

In a recent interview with Insider, ILM visual effects supervisor Patrick Tubach revealed that they included "one small nugget that somebody may not have picked up on."

"As you fly up through that giant lightning tree and you get up to that top of the tree and she hears the voices of the Jedi," he said, describing the clip. "That starfield you're looking at is exactly the Episode IV starfield."

Towards the end of the film, fans saw Rey almost getting defeated by Emperor Palpatine. As she looks up the sky and sees the Resistance fleet under attack by the Sith Lord's Force lightning, Rey's vision moves past to a starfield. This then led to the epic sequence of the heroine hearing the Past Jedi voices encouraging her to rise up.

Tubach said this was "important" to director J.J, Abrams because he wanted to "have that moment harking back to the very beginning of Star Wars." Tubach also thinks that it was about "bring it all back together" as well. "Seeing those stars and seeing them look exactly that way," he added. "It does rotate, but what you end up on is in the beginning of Episode IV."

Did you notice this subtle reference to A New Hope? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now showing.

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